What amps/effects is Troy using in the videos? His sound is massive and sounds fantastic.
2 Likes
One of the coolest parts about Troy’s setup is that he uses next to nothing. Just that Cornford Hellcat with some post-processing (reverb and delay I think) in Logic after the fact. I don’t know if anything changed in the past few months, though.
Troy’s a great example of a guitarist who lets his technique do the heavy lifting. Really crisp and articulate sound.
Serious question, what else would someone use if they weren’t using “next to nothing”? When it comes to a high gain guitar sound, most producer interviews and forum threads I’ve read are still just people miking an amp with a 57 or some other mic, like maybe a Royer 121 or something. Which we have, btw, but I’m fine with a 57.
Fair question, I meant the totality of the gear you have in your signal chain, as opposed to rack effect after effect or pedal after pedal.
For sure, that’s what I was getting at. What kind of effects would someone be using in addition to an amp to get their core distortion sound? Meaning, why would someone find it surprising that I’m using “just” an amp. Isn’t that what everyone is using?
I wasn’t meaning to be combative or anything. I just meant that a lot of times people might think players are using a more complicated setup, with some compression, noise gate, excessive reverb, delay, anything that might cover up note articulation or gain control. I’ve always liked the guitar -> cable - > amp approach with a lack of excessive effects.
1 Like
Not taken that way at all! I’m just curious what everyone is using if the idea is that my setup is somehow minimalist. I wasn’t aware that it was. Re: compressors and gates. the Hellcat is a not a noisy amp. And when you crank the gain, that waveform in Logic is flat. There’s no more compression you’re going to add that will actually do anything.
Excessive reverb though, I’m guilty. For Teemu we put some some delay on there too. But that’s in Logic.
1 Like
I use a Boss GT-1000 pedal board into my Mac. In the past I used a Carvin Legacy 100 with some pedals. I guess I started the thread because I really like the tone.
1 Like
I’m a “guitar straight into amp” sort of guy, myself, so this is NOT my usual workflow (I generally use a SM57/MD421 through a great Neve style mic pre/rack EQ combo, with a little delay in the mix and maybe a touch of added EQ as needed, though I definitely try to get it as close as I can on input. Not simple exactly, but also not too wild).
But, in the age of digital modelers… and not to single out djent, but I’d say especially there… I see a lot of software/DI based signalchains that generally incorporate a OD of some sort as a clean boost in front of the amp, a paragraphic EQ behind it, often some sort of multiband compression (“for the chugs, man…”), and then time based stuff like delay and reverb. Idunno. I guess I’m not THAT far from there now that I’m running EQs behind my mic preamps. I tell myself it’s different because I’m using them to do the same tweaks I know I’m going to make in the mix, and honestly the Neve 551s are so damned musical sounding that it kind of defies reason…
But, idunno. I guess I’ve always felt that if the “core” of your guitar sound isn’t already pretty great, no amount of FX is going to save it in the mix.
You may be surprised to know that most modern guitarists are likely using an overdrive or distortion in front of an amp that is set relatively clean.
Your tone is very good, and it’s a great example of how to do it without pedals. Cornford has some nice and hot circuits. But I think the days of cranked amps with power tubes a cookin’ is over. Especially considering how people are going for a lot of these new modeler systems that have become very popular.
I have an old 70’s Garnet Revolution II Pro II 1x12 combo. It’s pretty much a Marshall JMP like circuit, but I’ve got it loaded with low gain NOS preamp tubes which give it a very full, but clean, fundamental tone.
I use an Xotic BB Preamp clone pedal in front and get the preamp cooking even at low volumes and it sounds very good. I can get oldschool marshall cranked tones easy even at bedroom volumes.
For sure! OD + amp has been the formula since the beginning of time. Yngwie’s best sounds were recorded that way. Then we had high gain amps like the Soldano SLO, and some people didn’t need pedals any more. Then the Rectifier brought even more gain. And bass flub, and fizz. So we put Tubescreamers in front of them, and miked them darkly — or got them modded — to “fix” those issues. And so on. And now we’re into the land of software. It’s all good.
I was mainly just trying to understand what people are getting at when they ask what we’re using here. My impression is they’re wondering if there is some secret sauce rack effect. There is not - it’s just an amp miked in a non-fussy way. I think a lot of good recorded sounds come down to simple solutions, but you have to know what they are. Downward pickslanting is a relatively simple concept - but we didn’t know what that was for a long time either.
My impression is that the amp is on fairly loud when you are playing in the videos. Just seemed that way to me.
A sustained power chord measures about 85-86db from six feet away from here in the studio. So not band rehearsal level, but not apartment level either. Suburban basement level easily though. I don’t go nuts with it, but if it’s too quiet you really can’t hear what’s going on with articulations and of course mistakes.
Thanks for the explanation Troy. I get what the OP was asking. Your tone has a really “hot”, “cutting” and almost “scraping” quality to it that is very unique. Yet it’s not in the least thin. It’s hard to describe tone using words, of course – but that specificity of your tone is probably why OP/others assumed there may be some secret sauce in the tone that we were missing in our own rigs.
Yes, the Hellcat is an upper-mids forward amp. And the mid control on the amp isn’t really a mid control in the typical sense either, e.g. like the 700k boost like the old Boston records. It’s more of a 1.5k centered control, so you have to be careful with it.
1 Like
Is the Hellcat even manufactured any more?
Not anymore, but Martin Kidd, who worked at Cornford, owns Victory Amps.
No, but the designer, Martin Kidd, is the guy behind Victory Amps. I don’t know if any of these have the same circuit as the Hellcat though:
Thanks. I didn’t know that. Anyone know how the Hellcat differs from say a Friedman Runt or Brown Eye?
In terms of what, the circuit? I posted some pictures of the internals in another thread for the technically inclined. I think the guy at the repair shop here in Brooklyn said it had similarities to Mesa designs. More than that I can’t tell you. But it sounds exactly like what you hear in our videos, and it pretty much has that one sound. At least for me, since I just keep the gain knob maxed and the tone controls just give you that sound with more upper mids or less upper mids.
It’s not an amp with a thousand switches and options and honestly I prefer it that way. Because if you give me a lot of switches I will demo them all and make test comparison recordings and spectra and it feels like work. I’d prefer the amp designer just did that for me, and gave me the curated result and said here, this is the sound it makes and if you want other sounds get another amp!
1 Like